Bio Hits Mark, All Apologies To Others

Rock biographies became a publishing phenomena after No One Gets Out of Here Alive, the Jim Morrison biography, became a New York Times best seller in 1980. For those of us who read No One Gets Out of Here Alive when we were young aspiring writers or musicians, the book served as a guidebook and a reading list. Yes, this is how an artist takes on the world.

Morrison read Nietzsche, Rimbaud, Blake, Huxley, Coleridge, Keroauc, Ginsberg, the beats, the Greeks and any other writer a young artist should read. Morrison believed, as Nietzsche wrote, "Say yes to life," although he said "yes" to death at 27 in an accidental drug overdose. Morrison took drugs to broaden his mind, to expand on life's possibilities. Or at least that was the plan.

Kurt Cobain, the frontman for Nirvana -- the band that put Seattle on the rock 'n' roll map -- was not the book lover Morrison was. Cobain took drugs to kill the pain, both psychic and physical. He killed himself with a shotgun at 27.

Charles R. Cross, from a technical perspective, is a better journalist than Danny Sugarman or Jerry Hopkins, the authors of Morrison's biography. Cross is more thorough, more cogent, less blinded by the glare of fame. But Cross's book lacks the vitality of Sugarman and Hopkins' effort, and this might be in large part due to their respective subjects and the respective audiences.

Cross was editor of The Rocket, a Northwest music magazine, for 14 years. In the 1980s and early 1990s, there were talented and literate people at The Rocket, and its readership extended well beyond the small incestuous Seattle music scene. By 2000, though, when The Rocket folded, it had become a magazine for people who weren't readers. Heavier Than Heaven has some of that problem.

When fan bases grow, the chasm between artist and audience increases as well. After the multiplatinum Nevermind, Nirvana fans became a wildly diverse mix, but they overlap more with the fan base of Guns 'N Roses than, say, the lettered folks who love R.E.M. and read book reviews. Cobain was well aware of this. On In Bloom, Cobain sang about fans who like his songs and like to sing along but "don't know what it means." These fans still bought his records, but they are not going to buy this book. They don't buy books.

Well-researched

If you, however, fit into the sub-category of Nirvana fans who do buy books, this is the one to get. Fifteen other Cobain books are listed on Amazon.com, but none matches Heavier Than Heaven for research, accuracy and insider scoops.

Even Michael Azerrad's well-respected Come As You Are didn't seem to have access this impressive -- sections of Cobain's journals are excerpted here, along with unsent letters and descriptions of his drawings and other artwork.

It's worth noting that Cross did not allow the favor of his access to censor his reporting. The Cobain of Heavier Than Heaven is more complicated and infuriating than the "sweet, generous, caring individual" Azerrad wrote about.

Cobain grew up in a dysfunctional working-class family with divorced parents, but it wasn't any worse than millions of other families, and contrary to one of Cobain's self-created myths, Cross shows here that he was never homeless or slept under a bridge.

Cobain was very conscious of the public stories he presented, and these stories were often at odds with the truth Cross found. For example, Cobain told interviewers that Black Flag was the first concert he attended. The reality is Sammy Hagar with Quarterflash. Cobain even bought a T-shirt.

One can understand why an artist looking for street credibility wouldn't cop to this -- or to the fact that the first record he bought was Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks -- but part of the brilliance of Nirvana was its fresh integration of punk ethos and pop melodies.

Leaning toward pop

Nirvana's first CD, Bleach, was a punk record, with hints of pop. Nevermind, its second CD, was a pop record with hints of punk. Bleach sold about 60,000 copies initially; Nevermind -- released on Sept. 24, 1991 -- sold more than 10 million copies.

Nirvana sold alternative music to the masses, the first band to do so in a major way since U2 and R.E.M. And one of the things that Cross reveals is that Cobain was sometimes much more calculating than imagined. "I'm going to make a record that's going to be even bigger than U2 or R.E.M.," Cobain presciently bragged. When he miraculously fulfilled this uncharacteristic braggadocio, he felt even further disconnected from most of his friends and family and peers.

After his commercial success, he became increasingly alienated, and he took an interest in reading. At least I'm reading books, he said, when defending his post-success slothfulness. He found that he identified with that semisuicidal Dane, Hamlet. In one suicide note found after one of his several heroin overdoses Cobain wrote, "Like Hamlet, I have to choose between life and death."